Welcome Image and Text

We believe in the long term value of Apple hardware. You should be able to use your Apple gear as long as it helps you remain productive and meets your needs, upgrading only as necessary. We want to help maximize the life of your Apple gear.

Main menu

Welcome to Low End Mac

Navigation Bar

|

Mac LC

LEM Staff - 1990.10.15

What was the smallest desktop Mac prior to the Mac mini? Apple’s LC series, which measures just under 3″ tall, although it has as big a footprint as four minis. The Mac LC, introduced in October 1990, was the first of the family.

The first Mac crippled from the ground up, the LC (code named Elsie, Prism, and Pinball) was designed to a new low price point of $2,500 with 2 MB of RAM and a 40 MB hard drive. The LC was the first Mac to run a 32-bit CPU on a 16-bit data bus, making memory access slower than it should be (the LC benchmarks at about 3/4 the performance of the Mac II, even though both use the same 16 MHz 68020 CPU). Although Apple had retired the 68020 chip with the Mac II in January 1990, it reintroduced it with the LC that October.

To add insult to injury, Apple programmed the ASICs to support no more than 10 MB of RAM even if more was installed.

The LC was available in a dual-floppy configuration for the education market.

Apple introduced a new color video standard (512 x 384 pixel) and a cheap 12″ color monitor to match it. With a VRAM upgrade, the LC supports 16-bit video (65,536 colors) on the 12″ monitor or 8-bit video (256 colors) on a standard 640 x 480 screen. Because of the odd screen size, some programs refused to run with the lower resolution monitor.

Along with the IIsi, the LC was one of the first Macs with audio input.

If anything, the LC was deliberately designed not to take market share from its siblings, the IIsi and IIci. We call it a Compromised Mac.

On the other hand, Apple sold 500,000 LCs within 12 months of release, making it a runaway success.

LC Power WorkStation from MicroMac is an expansion chassis that includes a 32 MHz 68030 processor with a 32 KB cache, has room for two PDS cards, and has room for a second hard drive and an optical drive. Not cheap!

Online Resources

Creating Classic Mac Boot Floppies in OS X, Paul Brierley, The ‘Book Beat, 2008.08.07. Yes, it is possible to create a boot floppy for the Classic Mac OS using an OS X Mac that doesn’t have Classic. Here’s how.

Know Your Mac’s Upgrade Options, Phil Herlihy, The Usefulness Equation, 2008.08.26. Any Mac can be upgraded, but it’s a question of what can be upgraded – RAM, hard drive, video, CPU – and how far it can be upgraded.

The Compressed Air Keyboard Repair, Charles W Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2008.07.24. If your keyboard isn’t working as well as it once did, blasting under the keys with compressed air may be the cure.

The 10 worst Macs ever, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 2007.10.23. The ten worst Macs of all time – and one of them came out just last year.

Simple Macs for Simple Tasks, Tommy Thomas, Welcome to Macintosh, 2007.10.19. Long live 680×0 Macs and the classic Mac OS. For simple tasks such as writing, they can provide a great, low distraction environment.

Mac System 7.5.5 Can Do Anything Mac OS 7.6.1 Can, Tyler Sable, Classic Restorations, 2007.06.04. Yes, it is possible to run Internet Explorer 5.1.7 and SoundJam with System 7.5.5. You just need to have all the updates – and make one modification for SoundJam.

Jag’s House, where older Macs still rock, Tommy Thomas, Welcome to Macintosh, 2006.09.25. Over a decade old, Jag’s House is the oldest Mac website supporting classic Macs and remains a great resource for vintage Mac users.

Productive at the low end: 3 Mac users share their tales, Tommy Thomas, Welcome to Macintosh, 2006.08.29. Whether it’s using WordPerfect 3.5ep on a PowerBook 1400, writing and surfing on a clamshell iBook, orplaying around on a Power Mac 9500, these users find old Macs the right solution.